My $75 lesson in never trusting a client's 'payment processing' fee

I did a $500 design job for a small shop in Denver last spring, and when I invoiced them, the owner asked if I could use his payment portal to 'make it easier.' Stupid me agreed. He sent a link to some fintech site I'd never heard of, and I had to pay a $75 fee upfront just to access my own invoice data. Turns out it was some peer-to-peer billing scam that took eight weeks to settle. I only got $425 in the end, plus a headache. Anyone else had a client try to push their own payment system that cost you money?

3 comments

3 Comments

xenam848d ago

Added a $25 processing fee to my own invoices after that.

samreed8d ago

Double down on always using your own invoicing system from the start no matter what they say. That $75 fee was basically a tax on trusting someone else's tech instead of your own setup. Once you let a client control how you get paid, you're just asking for trouble with weird fees and endless waiting periods.

jessica3318d ago

Fruit of the poisonous tree is real with client-controlled payment systems. My hard lesson was losing 3% on every invoice plus waiting an extra 10 business days for funds that should have hit my account in 48 hours.